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About Me

If you are considering have a set of Quad ESL (57's, 63's, etc.) refurbished, please be aware of some unsavory business practices by one of the leading firms, Quad Unlimited and its owner Wayne Piquet (aka PK).
If you do research on the various companies refurbishing Quad's, PK has a sterling reputation. His work even received a TAS "Golden Ear" award in 2007. And, one of the main Quad ESL information websites have a webpage dedicated to PK's services.
Well, I have personal experience with PK. Back in late 2011, I contracted him to refurbish a pair of Quad 63's. After months of delay in delivering my speakers and at $500 additional cost over our initial agreement, the speakers were basically worthless. They almost immediately started having issues with arching. Eight months after receiving my speakers I ended up selling them for $250 (my total costs were well over $3000). I tried to have my money refunded but PK absolutely refused. Given that I reside in Colorado and PK resides in Florida, taking legal action, which I seriously considered, was not in the cards. Besides, it was my word against a well known & respected industry expert.
For the most part, I had moved on until a recent development this week where I was able to learn that several other of PK's customers have had similar experiences (and worse). This all came about when PK did an e-mail blast to a large group of people to solicit the sale of a special pair of Quad's he had. He included everyone's e-mail address (vs doing a BCC). I did a "Reply All" to request removal from the list because of my previous experience with PK. I also included a very brief paragraph of my issue with PK. As a result, 2 other people came forward (via public e-mails) and related similar experiences. All of us lost $1000's so this is not trivial.
As I mentioned earlier, I know that people including some on CA had been very happy with PK's work but there is another side. If you want more information such as copies of the other complaints (e-mails), please PM me.

I have now been enjoying music in glorious surround for almost a year.
I urge everybody to share good surround experiences, whether the source is SACD, DVD/BluRay, ripped or from disk or any other source.
State source, way of playback and number of channels.
Let me begin with my surround album from last night:
Emil Richards - Joe Porcaro Allstar Big Band - Odd Men In
24/96 5.1 download from AIX Records - DVD Premium - The Emil Richards/Joe Porcaro All Star Big Band - Odd Men In
Played with Decibel from internal HD on system listed below.
Almost overwhelming big band experience, thanks Aix
PS. This thread is inspired by Chris' thread Album of the Evening.
I hope we surround connoisseurs can give the CA community a similar list of great surround experiences.